Hope lives, but it is no kindness.
It lives because only cruel things survive.
What thing more hateful than its prolonged suffering,
the torn-down defenses that open us to ever more pain?

Hope lives, and it is a sly beast,
a jagged-fanged prowler in the night.
It rips open old wounds and slavers its poison.
How savage, this thing of moon-eyed longing, how dire its claws.

Hope lives, a lethal narcotic.
It is honey on the tongue and an axe in the soul.
What is more empty than its promises,
whispered in the ear with naught but dust and piss to back them?

Hope lives, our final damnation.
Our purgatory, our plague, our burden.
It will not die, for we do not deserve its death.
We must suffer under its yoke.
We have not earned that peace.

We have not earned that peace.


Penned by my hand on Falsday, the 25th of Ivolnos, in the year 16 AC.